1.Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wagon body module having a flow guiding device, the wagon body module serving to form at least a portion of a head portion of a wagon body of a vehicle supported on at least one running gear, in particular a rail vehicle for high-speed traffic, the wagon body defining a vehicle longitudinal direction, a vehicle transverse direction and a vehicle height direction. The head portion is configured to form a leading free vehicle end during normal operation of the vehicle. The flow guiding device is itself configured to be arranged at a lower side of the wagon body in the vehicle longitudinal direction between the free vehicle end and a leading end of a running gear cutout of the wagon body, the running gear cutout receiving the running gear associated with the free vehicle end. The flow guiding device is configured to influence, during operation of the vehicle, an air flow which flows over the lower side of the wagon body from the free vehicle end towards the running gear cutout. The invention further relates to a wagon body and a vehicle having such a wagon body module.
2.Description of Related Art
In modern rail vehicles having comparatively high nominal operating speeds, there is generally the problem that considerable noise emissions occur at the vehicle head in the region of the leading running gear cutout particularly at high speeds. This is, since inter alia the flow in the region of a leading flow separation edge becomes detached from the outer skin of the wagon body at the ingress into the running gear cutout, a continuously expanding shear layer resulting within the subsequent flow path. Generally, in that shear layer, periodic formation of turbulence (so-called Kelvin-Helmholtz-Instability) and the associated noise emission occurs. Another problem involves the comparatively hard impact of the shear layer on following vehicle components, in particular the impact on the wall at the trailing end of the running gear cutout which also contributes significantly to the noise emission.
The unfavourable flow relationships described further increase the aerodynamic resistance of the entire vehicle and the flow loads on the track bed which may result in objects being thrown up from the track bed (for example, so-called flying ballast).
The document EP 2 106 983 A2, in the context of a generic wagon body module, proposes providing, in the region of the flow separation edge at the leading end of the running gear cutout, turbulators which are distributed in the vehicle transverse direction and which are intended to serve to introduce a plurality of relatively small vortices in the shear layer in order to suppress at least substantially the periodic formation of the above-described vortex. The turbulators can be formed both by a heavily roughened surface and by comparatively greatly pronounced crenellated projections orientated in the vehicle longitudinal direction in the outer skin of the wagon body. The crenellated projections can themselves in turn be formed by prismatic elements positioned on the outer skin or corresponding notches in the outer skin of the wagon body.
Although this configuration allows the formation of periodic vortices and the associated noise emission to be reduced by the turbulence in the shear layer being increased, the configuration described involves the disadvantage that the shear layer expands comparatively quickly or powerfully in the vehicle height direction so that a comparatively large impact surface of the shear layer on trailing vehicle components (such as the running gear or the trailing delimiting wall of the running gear cutout) results with the associated noise emission being amplified accordingly. On the other hand, a shear layer which is strongly expanded in that manner naturally increases the flow resistance of the vehicle, sometimes substantially.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a wagon body module of the type mentioned in the introduction which does not involve the above-mentioned disadvantages, or at least involves them to a lesser extent, and which particularly allows the noise emission of the vehicle to be reduced in a simple way.